NIH Seeks Community Input on Proposal to Cap Research Grants

By: Galen Cobb
Wednesday, June 24, 2026
On June 8, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) released a Request for Information (RFI) seeking public input on a proposal to cap the number of Research Project Grants (RPGs) an individual can simultaneously hold as a Principal Investigator (PI) or Multi-Principal Investigator (MPI).

This proposal is not NIH's first attempt to address the question of funding concentration among its grantees. About a decade ago, NIH proposed the Grant Support Index, a complex award-accounting mechanism intended to balance funding across the biomedical research workforce, which sparked significant community discussion about diminishing marginal returns and the concentration of funding among a relatively small number of investigators. Though NIH ultimately pursued a different approach through the Next Generation Researchers Initiative, the underlying questions about how to distribute funding to maximize scientific opportunity and sustain the research workforce have remained relevant, particularly for early-stage investigators.

The current proposal is informed by a growing body of evidence suggesting that scientific output does not increase proportionally as funding accumulates in a single laboratory, that smaller teams may be more likely to produce disruptive or innovative findings, and that large, complex research enterprises can present challenges for oversight, mentoring, and project management. NIH is also acting in line with its Unified Funding Strategy, which directs Institutes and Centers to weigh scientific merit, opportunity costs, and available funds when setting awarded budgets.

NIH argues that redistributing funding currently concentrated among a small number of highly-funded PIs would broaden the geographic and institutional distribution of funding, expand opportunities for early-stage and mid-career researchers, and improve mentoring, rigor, and reproducibility. Notably, most NIH-supported investigators would not be affected; in fiscal year 2025, only approximately 11% of NIH-supported researchers held three or more simultaneous RPGs. Depending on where the cap is set, the policy could free up between $1.28 billion and $3.53 billion to support between 1,900 and 5,230 additional RPGs.

The RFI outlines two implementation scenarios with varying levels of flexibility. The first phases in the cap will gradually as existing grants come up for competing renewal, allowing PIs currently over the cap to relinquish or reassign grants incrementally. The second would require institutions to bring all PIs into compliance within one year of the policy's effective date. Under either approach, institutions could terminate grants at the end of the current budget period or seek NIH approval to transfer the PI role to another researcher.

Topics for Comment
NIH is specifically seeking input on four areas with strict character limits for responses:
1.    Pros and/or cons of the proposed policy (500 characters)
2.    The optimal number of RPGs for the cap — 2, 3, or 4 (50 characters)
3.    Strengths and weaknesses of the proposed implementation strategies (500 characters)
4.    Possible unintended consequences or policy loopholes (500 characters)

The webform also includes an "Other Comments" section allowing responses of up to 750 words, providing an opportunity to elaborate beyond the character-limited fields.

How to Respond
Comments must be submitted via NIH's online response portal by August 3, 2026. FASEB encourages interested organizations and individuals to review both the official RFI notice and the accompanying Extramural Nexus article for a full picture of the proposal before submitting a response.